Abstract [en]

This qualitative study focuses on how swedish advertisements reflect men and women. The main focus in the study is the representation of men and women. The purpose of the study is to make a historical comparison analysis between advertisements ads from the 50s and 2015 to see how men and women are represented in advertisements to get a deeper understanding about the using of the language in advertisments. As a method for the study we have chosen to do a multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA). MCDA is used to find standards and underlying messages in advertising ads. The theoretical framework is primarily based on theories about gender, identity, self-esteem and the influence of media.

The approach of the study comes from various analytical concepts in MCDA. MCDA divides the text and image in various linguistic resources, in this case advertisment ads text and image. From these linguistic resources, we have chosen to analyze three different discursive themes to find underlying messages and norms of representation of men and women. The themes we have chosen are: "Stereotypes and norms", " The wise man and the helpless woman" and "Who are ”we” and ”they”?".